#Still life with tornado

[bunnidid-reviews]

DID(Headcanon) Book Review

Facts -

Book Title: Still Life with Tornado

Author: A.S. King

Publication date: 2016

Fiction or Nonfiction: Fiction

Was there a diagnosis of DID? No

Was the person with DID presented as evil for having DID? No

Major Trigger warning list:

-          Descriptions of domestic violence, at times somewhat graphic (mentions of hitting, punching, breaking bones and threatening

-          Witnessing a spanking (at least audibly and then mentioning it by name, which I personally cant stand)

-          Emotional abuse, general tension and unrest

-          Gaslighting (? Is it? I don’t like misusing the word)

-          Very vague mentions of witnessing sexual misconduct on a minor (a teacher having kissed a student and the main character witnessing it)

-          Medical stuff that can sometimes be a bit graphic? (the mother is an emergency room nurse)

-          The police show up and make an arrest in the end (its not violent)

Subjective Review(this is how I felt about it) -

Personal triggering scale from 1 to 10 (1 being not triggering at all, 10 being a badly overwhelming experience that might cause personal harm): 5-10? (not too graphic but hit a bit close to home for me personally)

Personal relatability scale from 1 to 10 (1 being unrelatable, 10 being OMG THAT’S ME!): 10

Personal avoidance scale from 1 to 10(1 being eager to get on with it, 10 being impossible to finish): 7

My interpretation of the media(Includes spoilers):

Aaaaaaahhh this book was a hard read. Okay let’s go

The basic premise is about the 16-year-old Sarah. She’s an artist, but suddenly finds she suddenly can’t create anymore, and this is obviously distressing for her. It’s hinted at that the art teacher is suspicious, and something had happened in the art club that sparks this initial avoidance. Sarah was seemingly a good student with fine grades and on her way to being an artist, when she suddenly decides to drop out.

It’s clear by the tension she comes home to, that this is not a household that communicates with one another. Her mother is a night-shift emergency room nurse who’s always exhausted, her father is a sinkhole of a man. He has a job I don’t remember, he takes up a certain space that makes everyone around him very wary. The older brother is completely out of the scene and has been for 6 years. No one talks about it. Or anything, for that matter. These aren’t people Sarah can depend on.

There’s something wrong and no one ever talks about anything. Nothing is original.

In the steady decline of Sarah’s mental health, we start with her deciding to get her name changed to Umbrella, something of a nonsense choice that becomes symbolic of her favorite umbrella, one that shields her from the raining Bullshit as she ponders on whatever’s making her the way she is.

At the bus stop she meets 23-year-old Sarah, who clues in that even though life is hard, it gets better. And 10 year old Sarah, who’s sole existence surrounds the trip to Mexico and the traumatic events that transpired. Then 40 year old Sarah, who pushes for Umbrella to talk about what’s all going on here. The Sarahs all exist in the world as real people that others can interact with (which other characters find uncanny), but also seemingly show up out of the blue around Sarah. You can see how I feel this is heavy DID-coding, right?

As Umbrella traverses her existential crisis, we get flashbacks that piece together what’s going on under the surface, going over the trip in Mexico several times with more and more truth to it. This is all chock-full of confusion, denial and obvious dissociation; a tornado. Every now and again the chapters are in the point of view of Helen(the mom), who’s resentful and full of loathing for her life and her rat of a husband. Sarah also makes contact with her estranged brother to find the truth.

The hard truth we find out, is that the father had been regularly violent to his wife and son for years and years, up until Sarah was born. The incident Umbrella can’t remember was the same thing happening again on their trip to Mexico, that pushed the older brother into deciding to leave.

When Chet(the father) is confronted with the sight of his son coming back home, he has a violent rage and completely wrecks the house. When Umbrella confronts him, he destroys things dear to her, like the very umbrella she named herself after.

The cops are called. Chet the rat puts on a pathetic display as he’s he’s hauled out by the police. A divorce is sorted out and no matter his attempts to come back, all four of the Sarahs personally pack up his belongings and kick him out of the house for good.

Everyone lives a hopefully happily ever after with their sights set on healing. 10-year-old Sarah fuses with Umbrella, and it’s assumed the other two do too

~

This book is very difficult for me because the only difference between Chet and my own father is a couple of letters in the name and the lack of the bitter irony of being a “Loving Pastor". Everything about this book really resonated deeply with me, from the way he was intentionally unresponsive in a way to bait others into starting fights with him, down to completely not recognizing my own face. Chris is just as perfectly pathetic as Chet was in the book, and it shook me to the core to read such an accurate description of my own father.

I recall having a similar mental breakdown from 14-16 as well, and it went very much the same way. Nothing is original, after all.

A big part of Sarah’s trauma too is the betrayal of the Helen choosing to stay for the sake of ‘the girl needs a father’. Helen lost her son over her broken marriage. She didn’t leave, despite knowing all this, despite knowing it could happen again. I understand that she’s a domestic abuse victim herself and its very hard to get out of these situations in real life, but the absence of violence is not love. Sarah is betrayed and traumatized by it, and rightfully so. Her viewing 10-year-old Sarah as a ‘second chance’ for HERSELF hits really hard.

This book reads like a teenager going through all this who will later find out about her DID, because she doesn’t have the words for it at this point in time. The fragmented, unfeeling or only-feeling nature of her memories feel a lot like what memory recall is like with DID. Her unwinding into Nihilism and unreality is very dissociative in nature. The betrayal of being lied to all her life is palpable and complex.

What I found interesting was that the author clarifies that there are four Sarahs (10 yr old, Umbrella, 23 yr old and 40 yr old), but I’d argue there are a couple other fragmentations. The chapters titled with Tornado seem to almost be another part of Umbrella who embraces becoming a homeless man feels like an introject part. The sudden change in goals at the start of the book feels as though Umbrella is newly split off and taking over for whatever Sarah came before.

The author put a lot of personal details into this book, so I’m assuming a lot of this story is true to her own life. I don’t know how else you write a quietly domestically violent family like this without lived experience. The characters are all flawed and so life-like. The villain is notably human and not evil in the classic Disney villain sense. Evil and vile but in an extremely real way

It’s a really hard read, but it’s a good one. I’m not sure what else to say. If you’ve had experiences like this, traverse with caution, it might take you back like it did for me

Sorry this review is a bit of a scrambled mess also. I might’ve gotten some details mixed up, usually I do extra research for what I’m ingesting and didn’t have the energy for this one by the end

Key features that makes it relatable to the CDD experience:

-          Heavy dissociative vibes.

-          Depression, anxiety, traumatized spiralling

-          The multiple selves that come from different time periods of her life

-          Introjection

-          Memory loss, memories that unfold slowly and in small details

Key features that deters from it being called a CDD directly:

-          23 and 40 coming from the future

-          The Sarahs appearing as physical people other people can see

Would I recommend this to someone with DID to read?: Yes, but it’s very very relatable. You can feel the tension in the book.

[skepticalcartographer]

I didn't know about women artists back then because in school you only learn about the men.

If I knew better, I might have hoped to be Gergia O'Keefe or Aleksandra Ekster.

~ SarahA.S King

(Still life with tornado)

[tacagen]

one of the things that fascinate me about thawne: yes, he CAN be normal with kids! surprisingly normal!

((not at all times, though. his mental illness still spills through and as usual he, in trying to manipulate or hurt others, spits out at them the exact stuff that would hurt him (or have in his childhood/barry's rejection interpretation) the most in the first place lmao))

but at the same time. his like second instinct when doing his bullshit is FUCK THEM (as) KIDS

(and, well. whatever this classifies as)

[floridianfireflyfaith]

BUT THEN THE NIGHTMARE STARTED, IT GOT DEAFENINGLY LOUD

[happyk44]

Chewing on my thoughts like a feral dog because I'm running on like three hours of sleep and the brain be tornadoing, but like!!! Lewin and Renzou being opposite sides of the same coin or whatever. So similar in their inability to relate to other people, and yet Lewin being incapable of disliking himself over it because, despite everything Osceola taught him and knowing there's something wrong and different about him, he is unbothered by it. He accepts his deficits for what they are, violence and all. He knows he's off compared to everyone else, but that's just how it is. It's not a big deal. He makes due.

And then there's Renzou who grew up loved and isn't violent, doesn't really have those urges or curiosities, but he knows something's wrong with him, something that separates him from everyone else around him and it makes him hate himself and he gets mad about that too because it's not like he's hurting anyone so why is he so mad about it? Why does he care so much? Why does he want to fit in with his family? They fucking suck! But they love and care about each other and he doesn't and it drives him up the wall because their lives are the same, so why is he the only one who's broken?

[sotogalmo]

12:22

Nevermore by sasakure...... Such a Luka song but like. Also. Ivan- but I see it as like. How similar they are

[lilakennedy]

The past month or so has been a HILARIOUS trainwreck - My new job essentially went bankrupt after my FIRST day, I accidentally grew Datura on my balcony, I have an elusive MRI appointment that keeps getting pushed around, tried to get the limited Hozier vinyl but they only got a payment method I don't have, my friend nearly got snuck up on by a TORNADO cause we were busy playing Fortnite, and I STILL need to fix some of my ReShade presets -

[arctic-hands]

The subject came up today and I can't decide so I'm throwing it out there because I don't give a fuck and also having survived all of this kinda makes me sound like a badass

[mimenoises]

My unpopular opinion is I really do think garmadon should have died again after season 10

[songder-bot]

I want to be a human being. Or four human beings. Or whatever I am.

[seventh-district]

.

[oflgtfol]

like logically i know wildfires happen anyway like theyre a natural thing but isnt there something apocalyptic about wildfires becoming SO common and SO destructive to where the past few years ive regularly experienced wildfire smoke here on long island, a place that doesnt naturally experience many wildfires, and the only reason we’re being hit with this smoke is because it has traveled hundreds of miles from across the country. And every year theres record heat waves and people dying. And every year theres record strong storms and hurricanes. And every year tornadoes are suddenly becoming more common outside tornado alley. just what is going on anymore man i just feel this vague sense of dread and doom all the time

[steevejr]

can’t wait to be a parent so I can be like if you eat this hot pepper you’ll get set on fire and die. sorry. if you don’t close the door the ants will come in and carry you away forever. sorry. if you smash that spider instead of putting him gently outside the other spiders will be so mad at you. sorry. if you

hold on I just remembered when I was a kid and we lived in apts my parents would not let me jump because we had downstairs neighbors and when we moved into the house and I was hyped to jump my dad would says ‘you still can’t loudly jump or the worms would be mad :/ sorry :/‘ and he was so valid for that

[gir-posting]

thanks for the love on my shitposts heres a fixed up and colored edgeworth doodle to make up for how badly i dropped the ball on his hair earlier

[mothusband]

no storm surveyors came to confirm anything but after looking at the damage and talking with everyone who lives around my house my dad says they're pretty sure it was a tornado that hit saturday night. so 😬

[jynxeddraca]

New roof today! They started at a little after 6:30 this morning, just a few minutes after I woke up. I wish I had realized how early they would start.

My dog is not happy, so he got to take his anti-anxiety meds this morning. He's being a champ but he's so stressed out. Cats as well, poor babies. But the roof should be done today, the drywallers are going to be getting the fans and dehumidifiers out today as well so that will cut down on noise around the house and when that's done by the end of the week then we'll have a bit of time where the house will be quiet and free of random people.

Until the siding people start in. But there's no ETA on that just yet.